This German soldier received the same wounds in the same town as his father did 30 years earlier

In late 1944, German Pvt. Paul-Alfred Stoob was one of the many German troops quickly retreating from Allied forces. During his withdrawal, he was hit with fire from a Sherman tank and wounded in his head and leg. When he finally made it home to Germany, he learned that his father was also wounded in his head and leg in the exact same town in World War I.

Stoob was a Panther tank driver taking part in the general German withdrawal in 1944 before the Battle of the Bulge temporarily halted Germany’s loss in territory. After the Panther was destroyed by Allied fire, Stoob and the rest of his crew stole a truck and headed east towards Belgium.

A World War II Panther tank in a museum. (Photo: Stahlkocher CC BY-SA 2.0)

They managed to scrape together bread and some eggs before lucking out and discovering a stash of delicacies abandoned by a German headquarters unit. Only a short time after they filled their truck with the fresh food, an American Sherman crew spotted them and opened fire. Stoob was hit in the head and leg, but still tried to escape.

The Sherman tank wasn’t known for its firepower, but it could easily deal with a few German dismounts. (Photo: U.S.Army)

He made for a nearby cemetery and attempted to use the gravestones as cover for his escape. Before he could get away, a French priest begged for him to stop and then went and got an American medic to tend to his wounds.

Stoob spent the rest of the war in a prisoner of war camp in the U.S. and didn’t make it home until 1947. That was when he learned that his father, a veteran of World War I, had been wounded in the same unnamed village in 1914, exactly 30 years before his son.

Then Lt. Gen. George S. Patton, Jr. stands with Brig. Gen. Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., the son of President Theodore Roosevelt and a Medal of Honor recipient who invaded two countries with his son because #squadgoals. (Photo: U.S. Army)